Alive

Tenshu is imprisoned and sentenced to death. When he survives electrocution the government officials give him a choice to either be electrocute at a greater degree or agree to some experiments. He chooses the experimentation and is placed in a large metallic cell with a bad ass criminal who also survived the electrocution. They can have whatever the want in the room (within reason), but they can't leave. after a few days there meals are cut down to one per day and the room temp is set up too 100. After some more alarms are sounded at intervals so they can't sleep. One day a 'witch' come into their cell (albeit a glassed off portion) What happens next I'll let you find out. I may be in the minority here but I liked the build up, it was intriguing to me. Now if the payoff was half as good as the build up was I would have rated this so much higher.

My Grade: C+

Media Blaster's 2 DVD set Extras: Disc 1) Director's Cut; Trailers for "Versus", "Aragami", "Attack the Gas Station", and "Deadly Outlaw Rekka" Disc 2) Theatrical Cut; Commentary with Hideo Sakaki, Ryuhei Kitamura, Sakaguchi Takuand Tsutomu Takahashi; Cast and crew interview; Making of; Original Trailer; and Promo Teasers

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, "Alive" (2002) is a Japanese film adaptation of a manga that brings an inventive idea to the screen but falls short in delivering a coherent plot. The movie is visually engaging, with fun and dizzying camera work that keeps the audience on their toes. However, the action sequences can be disorienting, making it difficult to follow the storyline.

The film is heavily influenced by the post-Matrix era, evident in its stylistic choices, including the use of "bullet time" effects. While these elements add a certain flair, they also contribute to the overall sense of chaos and confusion.

Unfortunately, "Alive" is a disappointment compared to Kitamura's previous works, Versus and Azumi. While "Versus" was more fun and didn't take itself too seriously, "Alive" tries to push boundaries but ultimately gets lost in its own ambition.

Despite its shortcomings, "Alive" offers a unique viewing experience for fans of manga adaptations and those who appreciate experimental cinematography.

I've seen most of Ryuhei Kitamura's work and I've come to the conclusion that he has a knack for action. Scenes are kinetic and fast often combining elements of martial arts, gun fights and samurai fights with camera work that effectively captures the on screen carnage. With "Versus" and "Aragami" Kitamura demonstrated that creativity and showed that he his more than capable of working with a low budget. So what happened in "Alive" ? To be more blunt, the answer would be - nothing. Nothing happened in "Alive" it was a two hours plus movie with little to no action and little to no characters and plot.

Adapted from a comic book by Tsutomu Takahashi "Alive" is an examination of the life of one Tenshu Yashiro (played by Hideo Sasaki) a death row convict who survives his execution. He is then given a choice of either to repeat the execution or to subject himself in a bizarre series of experiments. He chooses the latter and soon after that is placed in a room along with a rapist and later with a girl infected with a strange parasite that in exchange for it's host's humanity grants supernatural powers. Naturaly at some point that parasite moves into Yashiro, the bad thing is that doesn't happen very soon.

Similar to "Aragami", "Alive" sets it's first half in establishing the basic exposition. Characters are introduced, their motivations are set and their relations between each other are uncovered. The whole thing even takes place in just one set. The first major problem of that comparison is that while "Aragami" was just a 70 minute movie, "Alive" drags on for more than two hours thus making the first part over one hour long. That length could have been justified had the characters been made a bit more interesting but alas that is not the case. Dialogue is dry, monotonous, delivered without any sense of emotion or depth, characters themselves aren't much interesting. There were some small attempts at making "Alive" a bit more moral ambiguous but in the end it all came down to the classic : evil government people against, super-powered protagonist, whom yes you guessed it, saves the girl in the end. Like I previously said the entire film practically takes place at just one set, and after two hours that does get boring, even worse the set design itself wasn't even interesting to begin with, and doesn't do much to improve on other aspects of the film.

Now, after that first part is over, one might think that Kitamura would at least make some entertaining action scenes to make up for the boring beginning. Sadly that is not the case. The two only fights are actually rehashes of similar fights from Hollywood movies, complete with bullet time effects and psychic powers. They're just not interesting or fun, Kitamura's creativity from "Versus" is gone, the small set even limits his often very impressive camera-work and it all boils down into generic and expectable fights, a shame really.

Evidently "Aragami" was better on all accounts and "Kitamura" had learned something from "Alive". So it wasn't at least a total loss watching this movie. If only to understand the errors made, how to fix them and create a better more entertaining movie.

ALIVE is a big letdown for fans of Kitamura's VERSUS. It's not a big surprise Kitamura chose this movie as his sophomore effort coming off the massive success of the hyper kinetic VERSUS. The result, unfortunately, is a terribly dull and drab movie that expends way too much energy on a silly story and even sillier fights. The first half is mostly nothing happening, with the film's first 40-minutes completely superfluous, as it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. What amounts to "tension" is one nice guy (who was condemned, but is still pretty nice) and a not-so-nice guy (who was also condemned, and deservedly so) trying to outdo each other when it comes to weak acting. The nice guy just mopes a lot and the mean guy just shouts and acts crazy. Amateur hour, anyone?

It doesn't help that Kitamura shows his familiarity with American films by, basically, reusing up all the action sequences that he liked from those films in this one. THE MATRIX special effects was used, as well as James Cameron's ALIENS sequence where characters run around screaming into each other's helmet/vid contraption as they're attacked. (For "elite soldiers", these guys "lost it" pretty darn quick!) We also get "psychic powers" very, VERY similar to Proyas' DARK CITY.

Not that ALIVE is completely bad. It's just...mostly dumb and bad.

5 out of 10

When I watch Alive (2002) for the first time a couple of years ago I thought the movie was fine despite that it a huge step down compare to the bombastic mess of violence and gore of Versus (2000) but now after reading the manga version which is very short and underwhelming I decided to give the movie another chance and my impression on the story and character still pretty much the same but with many new layer of respect for director Ryuhei Kitamura. Like I said before because the manga was not that good to begin with and when I watch The Making of Alive (2002) for free on Youtube and know the reason why this movie even exists in the first place is because how much the director love the ending of the manga so he makes a whole movie to accompany that ending is flat out insane and kind of inspiring. It a real challenge for the film crew to make this movie as entertaining as possible and I think with the Matrix action scenes and a rematch between Hideo Sakaki and Tak Sakaguchi definitely fill the bill although the movie still suffers greatly from the unnecessary long runtime and the pacing.